


His Empire

by madeofheart (nerdofthenile)



Series: Oppositestuck [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: I'm Bad At Tagging, Mentions of Murder, Oppositestuck, if these guys seem ooc good they are supposed to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 10:28:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10897449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdofthenile/pseuds/madeofheart
Summary: Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you are the heir to an empire.(The first in hopefully a series of works inspired by Oppositestuck, where everyone and everything in Homestuck is really different. This one is starring Karkat.)





	His Empire

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and you are the heir to an empire. 

You live in a hive built on the highest point of Alternia, which is your home planet. It has the best view, overlooking the wide expanse of land that serves as your soon-to-be homeland kingdom. It’s windows open up out to every direction. If you squint to the east, you could see the Alternian coastline. If you squint to the west, you could see the sheer cliff drop that swirled away into the rest of the ocean. And that is from the highest point of your tower. You can see a million different viewpoints from even the towers below. And the hive is, of course, huge. It encircles the mountain it sits on, and no village or city is built even close to it. You could walk for days and never reach every place. That is why all your quarters are so close, and why they all are close to the throne block where you spend a lot of your time. 

You enjoy how the throne makes you feel. 

The hive and all your belongings were made and paid for by your ancestor, His Imperial Hauteur, or HIH for short. You saw it strange in your wrigglerhood that he sent so much for you, considering that it will be required of you to kill him when you were older. It was your rite of passage. It was how you ascended to the throne of Alternia. Now you thought it was funny that the Emperor was sending his future killer necessities, even luxury. You actually laughed at it. It was an innocent yet perfectly insulting way of mockery and antagonization, giving you everything you could ask for as if he knew he’d smite you down anyway. It was funny. Almost sad, really, that you and him seemed to share the same sense of what some called a “morbid, twisted humor.” You advisors, also sent by HIH, instead told you that he was sending so much to ensure that your lusus, Cl’ak’ok, was properly cared for. He had the same lusus as you. But you doubt that he would send so many gold bangles for a giant crab Horrorterror creature from hell. 

Oh yes, your lusus a giant crab Horrorterror creature from hell.

You keep Cl’ak’ok in a pit at the western base of your hive, which means the bottom of the mountain. When you call him huge, you mean huge. He could easily take up the entirety of your hive as well as the rest of the mountain. But the pit is deep and round enough for you to fit him in, thankfully. And he loves it when it’s dark and dank. So you keep in in the ground where he likes. 

You have to keep his pincers shut with large metal cords. If you let his claws even slightly clack together, it could release a sound so loud, it would kill all of Alternia and possibly beyond. They call it The Vast Clack, and they only talk about it in whispers, “they” being your advisors. It has never happened in your lifetime, and apparently not even in your ancestor’s, but once in your ancestor’s ancestor’s time, The Vast Clack wiped out all life on your home planet while the Emperor of the time was away. 

Once in a while, and a while means at least tens of sweeps, Cl’ak’ok will shift them a bit and release soundwaves called Hisses, since the sound it makes is similar to an animal hissing. To higher bloods, Hisses only produce a short headache and then that’s it. To yourself, Hisses irritate you for about five seconds and then are gone. But to lower bloods? It is said to hurt like hell. To seadwellers, even that could kill them. 

And Cl’ak’ok is very good about allowing you to bind his pincers. So your population will be safe, thanks to you, of course. And you’ve only used the threat of releasing the pincer cords once or twice and only to your advisors when they simply won’t leave you alone. Of course, you don’t bind them yourself. You have low blood servants do that. Less chance of a higher caste getting killed by a Horrorterror. 

Your lusus eats other lusii. This is very easy to get, since you are royalty and all must either bow down to you or face the consequences. One of your friends helps with the organization of that. 

Her name is Nepeta.

She likes to boss people around anyway, so she’s great at telling people to go kill things. She is also great at screaming when you switch her hair cleanser for adhesive paste. That’s always fun. Still, she gets your lusus fed one way or another. It helps with keeping the planet from dying. 

You are protected by guards all the time, be they guard drones or mere trolls. Even then the guard trolls are required to be olive caste or above. You do not have even the slightest mix of darker green or teal on your protection line-up. You want only the best of the best. You rarely stoop to a lower blood caste. Of course, you have plenty of exceptions-- after all, you are a kind troll. But in your close personal inner circle? You want the closest to your blood color available. The past always has tales of lower blood castes sneaking into the royal guard to assassinate you. 

You have proof of that in the form of their pretty heads up on your respiteblock wall. You close their eyes come night so they can sleep too. 

You had their necks preserved so that if you looked underneath them, the stumps would reveal their blood colors. Such a pretty blend. There were some blues, a couple of teals, and even a few finned freaks here and there showing off purple hues, but an overwhelming majority were indigo bloods. Just three were above the teal cut. An olive blood, a green blood, and a pesky maroon blood who just couldn’t understand their rank. 

What a shame. 

However, you made their deaths swift and as painless as possible. They paid for their attempts at your death, but you made sure they felt no pain in their punishment. In fact, you’re proud to say that your last execution took only half an hour. That was fast!

But that was enough about your political and royal roots as a scarlet blooded prince. Even as the Heir, you were still only six sweeps. And for any troll to truly grow up in this heavily social society, you did have to make friends. Eventually. 

Of course your first friend was Aradia. Her blood is a maroon color, very pretty but you’ve never seen it actually out of her body before. In fact, you only see her either on Trollian or over video chat, even though she lives reasonably close by. She doesn’t like going outside. You think that her always being indoors is going to trick the drones into thinking she is useless and then they will cull her. You told her this. She tried to get outside more after that, she’s so afraid of anything that has to do with death and/or disappointment, which you think is hysterical since there isn’t anything to really fear if it's unknown, right? Anyways, you two are good friends. 

Then there was Tavros. He’s a bronze blood and is stereotypically snobby. He loves himself more than you love yourself. He already has a kill count to him, since he too has a lusii duty, though it isn’t to feed his lusus. His lusus needs exercise. Anyone would think this was weird for a kid to have to exercise their guardian, but then again, they wouldn’t know Tavros. He lets his lusus trample everything in it’s path for a bit before hauling it back to it’s cage, where he keeps it. He keeps lots of other animals caged too, and then feeds them to his lusus after the animal had starved. Even on your standards, this is cruel. You told him so and said he had to stop. He is the only highblood troll who has laughed at you when you gave an order. You were so impressed you didn’t cull him. 

After him was Sollux, a gold blood. You’ll admit, you don’t know Sollux well. He’s more a friend of a friend, being close with Aradia in the hate-friendship zone and with some others in your group. When you do end up talking to him via Trollian though, he is pretty annoying. All he ever talks about is the niceness of things. He is what some would call an optimist, but it’s to the point where you can’t mention a thing to him if it involves something even the slightest bit negative. It makes him an awful friend. But telling that to him would just make him sit there for a few minutes while he struggles to either log out of Trollian or ends up blowing his husktop to bits trying to block you. He isn’t too bright. 

You’ve already mentioned Nepeta, your friend who helps you coordinate your lusus feedings. She’s an olive blood with so much sass, if you bottled it all up and sold it you’d be richer than you were now. She swears a lot and throws insults practically everywhere, including to you, like she has a right. Like you, she hates romance of any sort, but unlike you, if you asked her she would never even discuss it or bring up a good point about why she didn’t like it. She just didn’t. She called it “gross” and “too mushy”. Her lusus died when she was young, and there are rumors in your friend group (most likely started by Equius) that she murdered her lusus herself. She’s that badass. But even though she plays tough, you know she’s actually very weak inside. 

It’s made her an intriguing pitch interest to you, but she doesn’t know that. Yet. 

You met Kanaya when she climbed your tower after getting stone cold drunk (again, Equius) and falling through your personal nutrition block’s window. She asked you for another Faygo, and you complied. You’ve been friends ever since. “The jade-blooded party troll,” you’d called her, and she’d laughed. You goof off quite a lot, she’s the one you go to when the politics get too much for even you and you wanna get away. She’s never serious about anything, which can be annoying, but nevertheless she’s fun. She also could careless. About anything. And everything. Her carefreeness makes her stupid. But it’s something that can be worked on through your never ending patience. 

After Kanaya’s caste was what you called the “cut-line.” It was where you stopped calling them highbloods and started calling them lowbloods. You did not meet them in caste order. It was very random how you came to meet them all. 

No one on Alternia would be surprised if you said the first lowblood to reach out to you was the one and only Eridan Ampora. You were shocked at his text color, bright violet, when he first contacted you through a link it took Sollux three hours to send you. Violet was the lowest caste you could get without being off spectrum and a mutant. He was either brave or foolish (spoiler alert, he was both) to contact such a high caste, even moreso the future Emperor. And the way he typed was strange too. Not the typing quirk or the puns, but the way he talked to you like you weren’t a highblood. He joked with you and talked about everything, from music he had heard to the scent of his hive, which was an old ship he had found with his lusus and made his own. He never called you "sir" or "Your Highness" like other seadwellers. He talked to you like a troll. He nicknamed you "Kar," when he wasn't calling you "crabcake" or "pincher" or something else that was annoyingly stupid. But still, how could anyone be so carefree about castes and still not be a bloodthirsty rebel? You would confront him perigees later on it, why he was so nonchalant, and he just replied, “You ain’t a highblood to me, is all. You’re Kar.” You decided you liked him. 

Through him you met his moirail, Vriska. You don’t talk much to her, but according to Aradia, who speaks with her daily, she is “super sweet”. And dumb, apparently. She doesn’t seem nor talk like an intelligent troll when you do speak with her. Of course you aren’t surprised, she is a low blood after all. But other low bloods have proved a bit more… cautious? She’s eager to trust. Probably why Tavros got the best of her and almost killed her by pushing her off a cliff with his weird mind powers. Even so, she loves emoticons apparently and uses them all the time and is the type of wriggler-ish that isn’t annoying, more endearing. 

Her neighbor though. Ugh, her neighbor. 

You remember how you first met Equius because he started out by calling you something so vile you will never put it down on screen or paper. You didn’t even know half of those swears. And he kept going even after you told him to stop. And then he typed out a million laughing emoticons when you said he shouldn’t be speaking to the Alternian heir that way. And then he logged out on you. Yes, Equius, a mere blue indigo blood caste, was in all ways the biggest of jerks that Alternia had to offer, and you knew them all. He kills trolls for wandering too far into his territory. No reason in particular, just because he can. He’s cruel and rude and hates Nepeta’s guts so platonically it radiates second-hand hatred. She hates him back all the same. You don’t like him. 

Equius actually was the one who mentioned Feferi first. He called her the “seadweller chick on the *insert incoherent swears here* coast who *insert more rambling swears*, you might like her, you know, you two share the same damnable spunk.” You got curious and tracked her down through Trollian. Feferi was the exact opposite of Sollux, really. Sad and easy to piss off and looking very lonely. You had no idea what her blood color was, which is interesting. Her text is hidden in gray, like your skin tone, and she never video chats with anyone. The only ones who have seen her in real life are the low bloods. From what you gather from Eridan, though, she is “mermaid like” and “all fins a funny.” When you talk to her, she is curt and pretty offensive when it comes down to it. She is a sea predator, so she gets food from the sea herself. Her lusus is next to useless. She thinks the worst of everything. But she is pretty determined. When you first typed to her, she wanted to know your name so badly, she sent at least three viruses to your husktop before you gave it to her. That kind of determination is something you admire in a troll. Still, it is quite strange to hide your blood color. It makes you curious as to what her hue is. You are anxious to see it spill. 

And you have two quadrantmates. 

You met Gamzee first. He was this brooding purple indigo blood and was taller than your scythe, which went well above your head. He was a heretic, he practiced a forbidden worship that was banned sweeps ago. He was always calm. So very calm. Nothing seemed to faze him at all. The world was dead to him. It was refreshing to you, to see someone so rooted into reality and not trying to twist it all into something positive that it wasn’t. “Everything is against us, Kat,” he's told you, “all we can do to stop it is put up our best fronts, our forts, and see to it that they don't break.” You liked that. He didn't sugarcoat anything. He always listened to you and never said “oh I'm so sorry” or “here let me help.” He said “That's terrible,” left it at that. If you wanted more from him, you asked for it and he gave.

You think he was scared of your reaction to a pale advancement, or maybe he was shy, but he was not the first one of you to make a move. You simply sent him a diamond one night on Trollian, he sent one back, and that was that. Nothing was confirmed by word. Your moirallegiance just happened. 

So you can still deny that he’s yours, if we were getting down to the details of it all. 

Your matespritship did not happen like that.

Gamzee was the one to introduce you to Terezi. She was this soft spoken teal blood who had an obsession with neatness and who was strict with etiquette in herself and others. For a lowblood who acted very high caste, she acted very proud and even regal. You were surprised to learn she was a thief. Like Gamzee, she broke the law regularly, though she physically stole things instead of chanting banned hymns. She lives in a hivestem, in a city, so she pickpockets a lot.

The first time you saw her you had to admit she was pretty.

You two talked for perigees about this and that, which was enough to begin thinking about each other's romantic interests. You were curious. A troll like her should have someone good. Then again, few lowbloods matched her, so that would be difficult to find someone to be considered “good”. She was the only troll who you thought should really have a red romance. You asked Gamzee, then Aradia, even stooped to Vriska, but the first two had no clue and Vriska just sent you a winky face and logged off. 

She was lucky you were in a good mood. Otherwise, you would have culled her.

So you decided to confront Terezi yourself.

It took a bit, you’ll admit, to get it out of her. Just days of pestering her for it. She said she had a flushed crush, but would never give the trolls name. It had started to get boring after a few nights of the same thing. Finally it came down to threatening her. For someone who stole so much and had shut down drones illegally before, she was terrified of punishment for her crimes. So at one point you told her that if she didn't tell you, you'd send your guards after her and she’d face a lifetime of imprisonment and/or public execution.

She called you insufferable and sent you a heart emoticon. That was when you got the hint.

Unfortunately, your advisors weren't as strict on the conciliatory as they were on the concupiscent. So they would never let you have a matesprit, as much as you'd love to entertain Terezi. So you had to tell her that you had to wait until you were 10 sweeps. That was what your advisors had restricted you to, so you were “mature enough” when the pailing drones came.

Terezi surprised you yet again when she said she would wait.

She told you that if she knew that she had you, she'd wait. If she could be your matesprit then, she'd wait. If you could say “I pity you” in ten sweeps, she would wait.

When you showed the log to Gamzee, he said, “Isn’t that poetic.” You said you wanted to say yes. He said, “Perhaps you should.”

So you did. So you do technically have a matesprit, but we are calling it a shelf life for her. As much as you’d love to say you trust her, you don’t. Ten sweeps is still four sweeps away, and really, what kind of troll would wait that long for a matesprit? Even you doubt you can. Still, it’s fun to send little hearts back and forth. And she always sends them first, and it makes a weird warmth swell up inside you that you want to douse and keep at the same time. 

You’ll keep them, your friends, your home, your world. Until you get bored.

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and one day you will watch the world burn in your image.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thank you so much for reading! Hopefully I did some justice here, I've loved Oppositestuck ever since I first heard of the concept. I hope I wrote it well???
> 
> If you liked this, feel free to tell me who's perspective I should do next below!  
> Thank you guuyyyyssss!!!


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